The practice of an academic hip surgeon at Washington University in St Louis, who offers bone marrow aspirate injections for early hip and knee osteoarthritis.
This is the personal practice site of Dr Cecilia Pascual-Garrido, an orthopaedic surgeon specialising in the hip. She is described as an associate professor working in adult reconstruction and adolescent and young adult hip disorders, and the address given is a Washington University campus box in St Louis, which places the practice inside the university's academic orthopaedic department rather than in a private regenerative medicine clinic. That context matters: it means the cell injection sits alongside conventional surgical care in an academic setting.
The cell treatment described is bone marrow aspirate. The site states the cells are obtained from the iliac crest — the rim of the pelvis — by bone marrow aspiration, prepared within about twenty minutes, and then injected into the affected joint. This is an autologous treatment, meaning the material comes from the patient's own body, and the description of the harvest site and timing is more specific than most clinic sites manage. The procedure is described as minimally invasive, with a return to normal activity within a couple of days.
The site is notably restrained about what the treatment offers. It frames biological therapies, including stem cells, as one option depending on the stage of the disease, and targets early to moderate hip osteoarthritis in active patients over about forty, rather than presenting the injection as a remedy for advanced joint destruction. No success rates or outcome figures are claimed on the pages reviewed, and no risks are set out either, which is a gap a patient would want filled in consultation.
Page titles mention Des Moines in Iowa and Kansas City as well as St Louis, suggesting patients travel from those cities, but only the St Louis address is given. Nothing is published about cost or insurance. In an academic practice the surgical work would normally be billed to insurance while a bone marrow injection for osteoarthritis may well not be, so the split should be established in writing before treatment.
The conditions named are confined to the hip and knee, with the cell injection aimed at earlier stages of joint disease rather than advanced arthritis.
The site states the cells are taken from the patient's own bone marrow at the iliac crest, prepared within about twenty minutes, and injected into the affected joint.
The site is built around one academic surgeon.
The address given is a Washington University campus box in St Louis, Missouri, which indicates an academic orthopaedic practice within the university medical centre rather than a standalone clinic. Treatment would therefore be provided in a university hospital or its outpatient clinics, with the laboratory and theatre resources that implies, although the site itself does not describe the premises, the processing equipment or any accreditation.
No prices are published and no insurance statement is made. Within an academic practice, surgical care is ordinarily billed to insurance, whereas a bone marrow injection for osteoarthritis may not be covered; a prospective patient should ask the department directly which parts of a proposed plan are covered and what any uncovered injection would cost.
Profile compiled from information published on the clinic's own website and from the StemCell Registry directory record. Details may change; confirm directly with the clinic before making decisions.